I have been with Afrihost since the beginning. I stuck with them three or four years ago when their line speed took a massive dip and Gian asked us to give them a chance to redeem themselves. My suburb is now fibre ready so two weeks ago I signed for an Afrihost fibre bundle even though they are far from the cheapest. Big mistake. They immediately put through a connection fee even though they said this would be free. I have been trying ever since to get them to reverse it. Nothing except the machine generated response giving me a ticket number (VJM-174-36846) telling me that a human will contact me "real soon now". Same with every reminder I send.

After reading some alarming comments on MyBroadband and Hello Peter I decided to jump ship and so I unplugged my ADSL line and sent en email cancelling both the new fibre and my existing ADSL bundle. I know they don't take cancellations by email so I asked them to phone me to confirm. Again nothing. Now they have put through a debit for the new month. Now I guess I'm in for a real nightmare.

What a pity that the wheels are falling off this company that I once really admired.

That's not cool to hear at all! It looks like there was an error on our side, as you definitely qualified for the R4,000 promotion. You definitely shouldn't have been charged the R999 for the WiFi router.

I can ask that our Team correct this, otherwise if you still want to cancel I can ask that they arrange for a refund.

Yes please refund me. Meanwhile you have delivered a router to me. As soon as I get refund I will hand deliver back to you. I have signed up with an LTE connection from another supplier which is fine for now but chances are that in a few months time the data will not be enough and I will switch to a fibre link. At that stage I will have another look at Afrihost. I feel a strange sense of loyalty to you guys and I really hope you manage to get over this latest glitch.

Yes please refund me. Meanwhile you have delivered a router to me. As soon as I get refund I will hand deliver back to you. I have signed up with an LTE connection from another supplier which is fine for now but chances are that in a few months time the data will not be enough and I will switch to a fibre link. At that stage I will have another look at Afrihost. I feel a strange sense of loyalty to you guys and I really hope you manage to get over this latest glitch.

We really appreciate that you're still willing to engage and hopefully look at fibre through us.

We're gonna work hard at addressing the issues you've raised and we'll be happy to turn around the poor impression we've made in the future

It is now 23 days since You incorrectly debited my account with R999.00 and which you promised to reverse. It is now 11 days since you debited my account with R378.00 which you also promised to reverse because I cancelled my ADSL service. It is 9 days since one of your supervisors, wrote: "Let me find out what is happening with that order and get back to you tomorrow.". It is now also 9 days since the following response from Afriman, your representative on the MyBroadband forum wrote:
Quote Originally Posted by jpretorius on thread " What is happening with my beloved Afrihost?"
"Yes please refund me. Meanwhile you have delivered a router to me. As soon as I get refund I will hand deliver back to you. I have signed up with an LTE connection from another supplier which is fine for now but chances are that in a few months time the data will not be enough and I will switch to a fibre link. At that stage I will have another look at Afrihost. I feel a strange sense of loyalty to you guys and I really hope you manage to get over this latest glitch."

Response by Afriman:
"We really appreciate that you're still willing to engage and hopefully look at fibre through us.

We're gonna work hard at addressing the issues you've raised and we'll be happy to turn around the poor impression we've made in the future."

It is now 23 days since You incorrectly debited my account with R999.00 and which you promised to reverse. It is now 11 days since you debited my account with R378.00 which you also promised to reverse because I cancelled my ADSL service. It is 9 days since Anita M, one of your supervisors, wrote: "Let me find out what is happening with that order and get back to you tomorrow.". It is now also 9 days since the following response from Afriman, your representative on the MyBroadband forum wrote:
Quote Originally Posted by jpretorius on thread " What is happening with my beloved Afrihost?"
"Yes please refund me. Meanwhile you have delivered a router to me. As soon as I get refund I will hand deliver back to you. I have signed up with an LTE connection from another supplier which is fine for now but chances are that in a few months time the data will not be enough and I will switch to a fibre link. At that stage I will have another look at Afrihost. I feel a strange sense of loyalty to you guys and I really hope you manage to get over this latest glitch."

Response by Afriman:
"We really appreciate that you're still willing to engage and hopefully look at fibre through us.

We're gonna work hard at addressing the issues you've raised and we'll be happy to turn around the poor impression we've made in the future."

I will not labour the point by making any further comments.

Goodluck, nothing will happen mates of mine are sitting in the same boat after signing up for the fiber deal.

It is now 23 days since You incorrectly debited my account with R999.00 and which you promised to reverse. It is now 11 days since you debited my account with R378.00 which you also promised to reverse because I cancelled my ADSL service. It is 9 days since one of your supervisors, wrote: "Let me find out what is happening with that order and get back to you tomorrow.". It is now also 9 days since the following response from Afriman, your representative on the MyBroadband forum wrote:
Quote Originally Posted by jpretorius on thread " What is happening with my beloved Afrihost?"
"Yes please refund me. Meanwhile you have delivered a router to me. As soon as I get refund I will hand deliver back to you. I have signed up with an LTE connection from another supplier which is fine for now but chances are that in a few months time the data will not be enough and I will switch to a fibre link. At that stage I will have another look at Afrihost. I feel a strange sense of loyalty to you guys and I really hope you manage to get over this latest glitch."

Response by Afriman:
"We really appreciate that you're still willing to engage and hopefully look at fibre through us.

We're gonna work hard at addressing the issues you've raised and we'll be happy to turn around the poor impression we've made in the future."

I will not labour the point by making any further comments.

Sorry about this, I think I misread your post and didn't get the sense that there was an issue to be followed up.

With regard to the router, we can't refund until the router is returned to us in sale-worthy condition (preferably still sealed). I'll arrange for someone from our billing department to reply to your mail so you can arrange all the details.

You must be joking! You didn't reverse the charge before you delivered the router so there is no reason to believe that you will do so if I return it. And what about the refund for my October ADSL subscription? You had already promised to refund both. That was before some moron decided to deliver the router for the fibre contract that I had already cancelled. My offer to return it rather than ask you to fetch it is more than generous in the circumstances so don't push your luck.

You must be joking! You didn't reverse the charge before you delivered the router so there is no reason to believe that you will do so if I return it. And what about the refund for my October ADSL subscription? You had already promised to refund both. That was before some moron decided to deliver the router for the fibre contract that I had already cancelled. My offer to return it rather than ask you to fetch it is more than generous in the circumstances so don't push your luck.

I don't think any retailer would refund before receiving the goods backs - that's simply not reasonable. We're a major company with 17 years of history, I don't think we'd risk our reputation for R999. It's our policy, and also just common sense, that the router must be returned (at your cost) for the refund to be initiated.

With regard to ADSL, our records show that you requested that your DSL be re-instated, hence the charges and we can't cancel those charges once we're into the billing run.

Yes I re-instated ADSL when it became obvious that you wouldn't install fibre by month end. BUT I cancelled again and disconnected my line when it became obvious that your whole company was falling apart. I did this before month end. I understand that you can't cancel those charges once you're into a billing run but you can refund them. In fact you have already promised to do so. Surely you are not also reneging on that!

Please tell me who to ask for when I return the router to your Rivonia offices.

Yes I re-instated ADSL when it became obvious that you wouldn't install fibre by month end. BUT I cancelled again and disconnected my line when it became obvious that your whole company was falling apart. I did this before month end. I understand that you can't cancel those charges once you're into a billing run but you can refund them. In fact you have already promised to do so. Surely you are not also reneging on that!

Please tell me who to ask for when I return the router to your Rivonia offices.

If you haven't used your data, we generally do a credit in cases like this and lock the data. PM me and we can discuss. However, if the line was not cancelled, it means we incurred costs from Openserve, and therefore we wouldn't be able to credit or refund.

There is a warehouse representative at the walk-in centre who can receive the router and process the return. From there he will be able to request a refund from our accounts team. It looks like you signed up for fibre again, so I am not sure if you are still wanting to continue with that.

Perhaps it's best if you PM and we can go through each issue one by one so we're clear on exactly how you want us to proceed

I can't stand it anymore. PR 101 says that if your company is maybe wrong - and you are hugely wrong here - then smile graciously, apologise and give the customer what they are asking for and a bit more. Don't bicker about little details. And your constant request to PM makes it clear that you are embarrassed by your response.

I have just returned to SA and I am looking for an ISP. I used Afrihost before and I remember them being built on excellent service and brilliant PR. Just saying....

I can't stand it anymore. PR 101 says that if your company is maybe wrong - and you are hugely wrong here - then smile graciously, apologise and give the customer what they are asking for and a bit more. Don't bicker about little details. And your constant request to PM makes it clear that you are embarrassed by your response.

I have just returned to SA and I am looking for an ISP. I used Afrihost before and I remember them being built on excellent service and brilliant PR. Just saying....

I think the issue here is the context. We're happy to deal with issues over PM for the privacy of clients involved. In this instance there are several incorrect assumptions and facts which are important for the context of why we've handled the issue the way we have.

Definitely not embarrassed by our responses, we just want to deal with the issue in the quickest possible way, and in the right context.

If you haven't used your data, we generally do a credit in cases like this and lock the data. PM me and we can discuss. However, if the line was not cancelled, it means we incurred costs from Openserve, and therefore we wouldn't be able to credit or refund.

There is a warehouse representative at the walk-in centre who can receive the router and process the return. From there he will be able to request a refund from our accounts team. It looks like you signed up for fibre again, so I am not sure if you are still wanting to continue with that.

Perhaps it's best if you PM and we can go through each issue one by one so we're clear on exactly how you want us to proceed

No, I haven't used any data. As I said I cancelled my bundled package and unplugged the (ADSL) line before month end.

No, I don't want fibre.

No, I don't want to talk to you on PM.

What I do want is for you to arrange the refunds so that when I return the router we do not have a bunfight at your offices. I am not asking you to actually do the refunds, just have them ready to go when I come in.

No, I haven't used any data. As I said I cancelled my bundled package and unplugged the (ADSL) line before month end.

No, I don't want fibre.

No, I don't want to talk to you on PM.

What I do want is for you to arrange the refunds so that when I return the router we do not have a bunfight at your offices. I am not asking you to actually do the refunds, just have them ready to go when I come in.

Godspeed.

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